Jason Danely is a sociocultural anthropologist who has been conducting research on aging and the care of older people in Japan since 2005.

In 2015 Jason was awarded an Enhancing Life Project Early Career Award to conduct ethnographic research on the meanings of family caregiving and the experience of compassion in the UK and Japan. This research has now been published as a book, titled Fragile Resonance: Caring for older family members in Japan and England (Cornell University Press, 2022).

His new book, Unsettled Futures: Carceral Circuits and Old Age in Japan (Vanderbilt University Press, 2024) focuses on the lives of formerly incarcerated older people in Japan. It also looks at the role of third-sector organizations in providing support for older people who have been impacted by the criminal justice system, and who are often isolated and estranged from kin or community relations. This research was funded by the SSRC Abe Fellowship.

Please follow the links above to find out more about Jason’s publications, including guides to teaching with his ethnographies and events where he will be speaking about his work.

 

 

“So often, it is the slow, subtle and intimate processes of grieving and careful attunement that proves far more important and revealing than the spectacular event of a singular crisis. It’s the commitment of long-term engagement, participation and collaboration in research that provides insight into the ways ordinary processes of aging and caring loosen one’s grip on the world, and at the same time, inaugurate new possible worlds.” - Jason Danely